Some Dollars for Django (1966)

A pretty standard standard Spaghetti Western with good production values and a decent script. UK R2 C'est la Vie DVD.

The Film

1966
was the most important year for the Spaghetti Western, it was in this
year that the genre really kicked off, with Sergio Corbucci's famous Django (1966) setting the way for the myriad of films to come.

The
film opens with bounty-hunter Regan (dubbed as Django in many releases
of the film) collecting a kill - a member of the notorious Norton gang.
He returns to his employers and they inform him that the gang-leader
Jim Norton has been killed but that two of the men are still at large.
Regan (Anthony Steffen) heads up to Montana to find Norton's twin
brother Trevor, in the hope that he could throw some light on the
situation, but Montana is at war; the cattle ranchers battling the
farmers. Riding up to Mile City, where Trevor Norton lives, Regan finds
a murdered sheriff. Arriving in town, Regan is mistaken as the sheriff
and is drawn into the complex and often violent conflict. Can he work
out how to solve the situation and bring peace to the town, or will his
bounty-hunter instincts betray him?

Some Dollars for Django
is surprisingly well scripted for what is little more than an
Old-Westsploitation film. Although even the most casual viewer might
figure out that the 'twin brother' routine is unlikely to turn out to
be just that, the film keeps you wondering and guessing throughout. The
ranchers and farmers seem to have decent motivation for their feuding;
too many Spaghetti Westerns just use the Mexican Revolution as an
excuse to get big gangs of gunmen attacking each other. Impressively,
neither the ranchers or the farmers are shown as being the 'bad guys'.
Both sides use violence, and although the ranchers attack more
brutally, it is the farmers who seemingly provoke the whole thing by
erecting barbed wire fences. Pacing is decent and the films climax does
work quite well. However, the film does fall into the trap of many
films of its genre - the bad guys take far too long to think about
killing the Sheriff - although they are prepared to kill their way
around the town, they stop short of trying to kill the Sheriff for too
long. The script as a whole has a strong American Western vibe to it
and much of this film could be mistaken for an American Western.

The
production budget was obviously pretty substantial for this film, the
interiors and exteriors look great and there are plenty of extras
running about, both in the shape of big groups of hoursemounted gunmen,
and loads of background characters in the town street scenes. However,
the direction
is quite poor - the framing is often terrible (although see notes on
the DVD) - and according to Enzo G.
Castellari (credited here as assistant director under the name Enzo
Girolami), the official director (Spanish 'director for hire' Leon
Klimovsky') was so incompetent and uninterested in the material
that Castellari himself directed most of he film (making this his
directoral debut). The fight scenes are very distinctive - like
Ferdinando
Baldi's Texas Addio
(1966) of the same year, the fight scenes seem to have been carried out
using pro-wrestling trained stuntmen and you get some very elaborate
fight moves, as well as some totally over-the-top gun shot deaths. The
music is very much a background affair, and almost unnoticable.

Some Dollars for Django is
a decent film with some great scenery that does look very American, and some good looking sets.
The acting is nothing to speak home about nor is the direction and a
rousing soundtrack that boosted so many average Spaghetti Westerns is
absent. However, the script is decent enough, and the fight scenes look
great. Recommended to Spaghetti fans, but certainly not a good place
for first time watchers.

In brief:

Anyone famous in it?

Anthony Steffen as Django/Regan. Also played Django in Django il Bastardo (1969)Frank Wolff as Trevor Norton. Played the luckless Sheriff Burnett in The Grand Silence (1969)

A
little blood. Some over-the top fight scenes that look more like
wrestling matches. Plenty of balcony dives and rockface tumbles.

Any sex?

No

Who is it for?

'Seen it all' Spaghetti Western fans should enjoy, but not for newcomers to the genre.

Good soundtrack?

Unexciting background music.

The DVD

Visuals

Cropped - approximately 1.85:1 (OAR 2.35:1). Non-anamorphically Enhanced. ColourThe image at times appears cropped at all sides, although whether this is poor direction is unclear.The
picture quality is good most of the time, some light grain, and a
couple of scenes seem to be from a lower quality source. Most
annoying though, at the top of the image (in the black bars) throughout
the film are white markers like tracking markers on a VHS.

Audio

Original
English mono - Dolby Digital - decent quality audio. The dubbing
is average although the Django character is inexplicably refered to as
Regan.

Subtitles

None.

Run Time

Main Feature: 1hr 24m 45s

Extras

The disc features:

Original Theatrical trailer - 3m 55s - PQ is decent.

Very brief on screen text biographies of Leon Klimovsky, Anthony Steffen and notes on the film.

Insert liner notes - Spaghetti Western summary.

Region

Region 2 - PAL

Other regions?

Now available on Italian R2 DVD from Minerva, in original aspect ratio with English audio.Also available French and Japanese R2, neither have English options. No additional extra features.

Cuts?

Cut status
unconfirmed. The French DVD has additional scenes, and the montage
of footage at the end of this film is the original title
sequence.Print used has German title but English credits.

Summary

An average Spaghetti Western with decent script, action and production, of some interest to fans of the genre.

The DVD is flawed, with a
cropped, cut print, and an audio track that has renamed
Django. The new Italian DVD is a better choice, but this disc is still watchable if it is all you can get.